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Buckle up Star Wars fans, because it’s happening all over again. Sure, The Rise of Skywalker was a cinematic disaster but it at least did wrap up the Skywalker Saga, albeit ineptly and confusingly. Since then Disney and Lucasfilm have corked the continuity bottle and not told any stories beyond that point.
Until now. The Star Wars cork has been conclusively popped with the arrival of Star Wars: A New Beginning. We’ve known for around a year that there was a Rey-focused movie set after The Rise of Skywalker in development. Now A New Beginning has appeared on the relatively reliable ProductionList.com, which says the shoot will commence on Sept 2, 2024.
The site’s summary says:
“Star Wars: A New Beginning is the official sequel to the Skywalker saga. The plot is expected to be about Rey rebuilding the Jedi Order after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. The film will be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who also directed episodes 4 and 5 of ‘Ms. Marvel’. Daisy Ridley is set to reprise her role as Rey.”
Time for celebration? Slow down, these are Star Wars fans we’re talking about. If the mood on r/StarWars is anything to go by the general mood is downbeat resignation that Disney and Lucasfilm will repeat the same mistakes that cratered the Sequel Trilogy.
The top-voted post predicts “Somehow, the Death Star returned”. It’s cynical but, to be honest, we can easily imagine the movie somehow pulling yet another galactic planet-destroying superweapon out of its hat. This plot element was getting old even by Return of the Jedi, with The Force Awakens’ Starkiller Base feeling like a bad tribute band.
Others predict that Palpatine will make yet another unlikely comeback “for the kids!”, realizing that this means Disney will never “de-canonize” the sequels (as if that was ever going to happen…), and grousing it’s not fair that Rey gets a movie about a new Jedi Academy when Luke was left out in the cold.
Maybe it’s unfair to prejudge this movie so far in advance. Perhaps Lucasfilm really has learned the many lessons of The Rise of Skywalker and this will be a mea culpa for that all-time disaster? Stranger things have happened.
But, for us, the most concise and cutting reaction simply recycles one of the franchise’s most iconic lines. Given the general quality of Disney Star Wars, what else is there to say but: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”